A conversation on "debriefing", a key stage in the use of learning games

Based on a post on the SOA Science corner blog , originally published on Tuesday 23rd, February 2010 (18:58)

What may be the differences between games and simulations? A paper by Sara de Freitas and Martin Oliver [*] suggests that there is not much, and hence that it is quite natural that many of the learning issues that are relevant for simulations are also relevant for games. If there is one difference to mention, it comes mainly from the entertainment characteristic which is attached to games, and it is exactly this dimension which makes both of them appealing to education and difficult to use. This difficulty rests in the fact that "in educational contexts, there is a need not only to enter the 'other world' of the game or simulation, but also to be critical about that process in order to support reflective processes of learning as distinct from mere immersion in a virtual space" (p.255). The authors notice that the apparent mismatch between the game and the curriculum may be due to “the omission of a clear debriefing session” (p.260). Then, the key question of evaluation: what should be the characteristics of a game (more generally a simulation), so that the debriefing is made possible? This implies that we can tell what the game-simulation is vis-à-vis the knowledge at stake (i.e. the expected learning outcome). This dimension of the analysis which is, in my opinion a prerequisite, is not considered in the paper. Should we add it as a fifth dimension to the four already proposed (context, learner, internal representational world, processes of learning)? Or is it subsumed in a way that I didn’t catch in my reading?

Martin Oliver responded (February the 26th 2010) that...

Sara de Freitas is certainly interested in the kinds of games that resemble simulations - she likes to use the portmanteau "gamesim" to denote this category.

Personally, I think that attempting to draw clear definitions that distinguish games from simulations would be problematic - my opinion is that what makes them useful or not is how they get used. A game can be treated as a simulation, and a simulation can be played with; it's a matter of convention which side of the definitional line they are placed on.

The discussion in relation to the "other world" experience of the game reflects that Higher Education (rather than, say, training) values the ability to reflect upon and critique experience, not just improve it. (Obviously that's a value statement, and not universal, but I'd refer people to Ron Barnett's work for a more general discussion of this kind of issue.)

The debriefing session is an example of a pedagogic technique intended to help bridge differences between play and curriculum performance - in some ways, this could be understood as just one more example of the classic problem of learning transfer. What is learnt from play is unlikely, in itself, to map neatly onto the goals of the curriculum; the debriefing simply recognises that a process of reinterpretation or renegotiation may be necessary. I don't think that "debriefing" describes a well-defined pedagogic interaction - more a class of conventions about asking people to make sense of the experience they have just had. To this extent, all that's required of a game (or simulation) is that people have an experience to reflect upon. We haven't tried to engage with what makes some debriefings better than others; this is, I'm sure, a fruitful area to consider but it's not one we looked at. Matching the game design to that debriefing is then an obvious and sensible approach - but again, it was outside the scope of this particular paper (which focused on evaluation rather than design).

And the conversation continued (Nicolas Balacheff, March the 1st, 2010)

"Debriefing" is a concept worth to be discussed a bit further. In order to explain why I think this way, I will start from the idea that inviting students or trainees to play a game is always (I use this word on purpose), a teaching/training-learning context, with an agenda in mind. This agenda may be hidden to the learners, but it is a key reason why to choose a game and invite them to play it. This agenda can be described in terms of learning outcomes (from a piece of knowledge to a specific behaviour -- possibly at a meta level like in problem solving or socialisation). Even if the game is successful it is unlikely, because of the richness of the game-play and the short time given for the genesis of whatever mental construct, that the learners will realize what was important, new, worth to be made explicit, put in a certain form and kept for further use. It is even more difficult to imagine that they will be able to relate any interesting outcome to knowledge socially or culturally shared by the community they will join after this teaching/training-learning period. So, from an educational perspective, debriefing is critical. Within the frame of the theory of didactical situations this phase is called "institutionalization". Indeed, this is even stronger than "debriefing", it means that the teacher-trainer has a special voice and responsibility in acknowledging the learning outcome and the value of a learning game.

A note after the redeading of: de Freitas, Sara and Oliver, Martin (2006). How can exploratory learning with games and simulations within the curriculum be most effectively evaluated? Computers and Education 46 (3) 249-264.